One Unlucky Duck at Momofuku Ssäm Bar

Sometimes you just have to write about what you've eaten. I guess anyone who is remotely interested has already tried the rotisserie duck which is now the mainstay of Ssäm Bar's lunch menu.

And you don't need me to tell you it's good. I just happened to have a rare occasion to take lunch in the East Village recently, so I hopped onto a bar stool and ordered the simple duck over rice.

Duck with rice, sauces and dried shallots alongside, is fairly priced at $14. Tempting to add scallion pancakes for a couple of dollars more, but there was already rice (I'd like the pancakes as an alternative to rice). A smart way for couples to go is to order the "duck over rice set" for $20. Duck, rice, pancakes, lettuce, and your choice of broccoli salad, spicy fingerling potatoes, or seasonal pickles. Add a second side from the carte, and you have an inexpensive lunch.

Duck -- over rice, over noodles, in a sandwich, in a dumpling -- is not quite the only thing available. The savagely spicy sausage with rice cakes is an alternative, and there's the usual complement of steamed buns and country hams.

The menu comments that the duck contains pork, and this is perhaps its most noteworthy feature. I was prepared to see a thin layer of sausage under the crisped skin. But oh no, the sausage is supremely present, in larger quantities than the duck. This has sparked some complaints; me, I like sausage, especially in this vaguely Chinese-ish style.

One of the sauces was a Korean barbecue sauce. The other was orange -- more I cannot say: it was not spicy -- Sriracha is available in squeezy bottles. The function of the dried scallions was to exploit gravity and hide out in the bottom of the bowl, defying the chopsticks. Also -- is anyone else bored with sticky rice. Give me moro con gandules any day.

But the duck's the thing, and succulent and tender it is. Quack, quack!